Web service: P25 sites: zoneNumber vs. rfss fields

[DonS]

Prior to version 9 of the web service, the "zoneNumber" field in P25 sites would be populated with non-zero values. For example, in the MPSCS, that field would contain a value between 1 and 7.

Version 9 of the web service adds a new "rfss" field for P25 sites. That new field contains what the "zoneNumber" field used to contain, and the "zoneNumber" field is now empty.

Unfortunately, the change affects version 8 of the web service, as well. Under version 8, the "zoneNumber" field for P25 sites is now empty. Apps that depend on the web service's versioning scheme, and which also depend on that "zoneNumber" field, are SOL.

 

[blantonl]

The problem here is that the zone field actually changed functions. Previously, the zone attribute for a site was an arbitrary int definition that admins could use to "group" sites. The primary focus became a way to group P25 subsystems together.

With the recent software release, we included an explicit new attribute for p25 sites called "RFSS" and migrated all existing zone definitions for P25 systems to RFSS because that us essentially what they were.

The "zone" attribute was then redefined as a site system ID attribute for Motorola Smartzone Omnilink systems and P25 systems networked by WACN with different system IDs.

Right now, the only systems with sites that have a zone definition are the Omnilink systems in the database. We are still investigating consolidating a few P25 systems that share system IDs but are networked by WACN, but that is still far off because we need to determine if those systems are actually networked and not stand alone entities (Some of the Mil,Fed P25 systems).

We could retroactively go back to version 8 and have it return the current RFSS attribute as the zone attribute, but I'd need to understand any other impact.

TL;DR: The zone attribute was repurposed.

 

[DonS]

Understood.

My concern was that an app that uses v8 of the web service and depends on the previous content of the <zoneNumber> field for differentiating sites will no longer work as expected - even if the app still uses v8 of the web service.

Of course, I've handled it in my own apps (using v9). For P25 systems, I first look at the sites' <rfss> field; if it's non-zero, I use it. Otherwise, I use the <zoneNumber> field.